The Royal Consort declares that the entry that should have won is Frank Osen's definition of "Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy" as the "acceptance speech from the winner of the Spackling Paste Eating Challenge."
I liked the Little Dog Fight Club entry. I had tried the Las Vegas Dog Show as what happens there stays there. Not talking about Little Dog Fight Club fits perfectly.
"The only thing I like about Trump is that he definitely has a sense of humor." Sorry, Gene, but no matter how many times you assert this, it remains a falsehood. Unless you mean he has a SICK sense of humor, which I would argue is a self-contradiction and not worthy of praise from a genuine humorist such as yourself.
Someone who's "still as strict as always about . . . perfect rhyme" should know that "acid" and "flaccid" do not rhyme. "Flaccid" is pronounced "flack-sid."
English language dictionaries do not, in general, give “correct” pronunciations. They will give pronunciations that are most common among educated speakers. If you read the front matter of the dictionary you are using you will find this in the fine print. (The front matter is basically all fine print.) That can be frustrating when you are sure you are pronouncing something correctly and someone else isn’t, but it does reduce the number of fistfights between pedants when they argue over how a vowel is pronounced or whether the absence of ‘r’ sounds in a non-rhotic accent is correct or just lazy.
A professional speechwriter I worked for called me out for saying "flassid" many years ago, and I never forgot it. Times change, I know, and old rules get mushy.
I think people pronounce it "flassid" because it looks like it should rhyme with "placid." And I can't think of anything that rhymes with "flax-sid," except the first 2 syllables of "accident." (Or is it "assident?")
Flassid is not "wrong." Flassid is the more common pronunciation. Most dics -- which ARE, correctly, descriptive and not prescriptive, only include flassid.
You, as always, are correct sir. Originally, the "cc" in Latin was "kk" but the second velar was softened with the development of the Romance languages. According to the English spelling-to-sound principle, "cc" being followed by an "i" or "e" should be pronounced"ks" (e.g. "accelerate"), so flaccid (asˈflæsɪd) is a widely accepted (and dare I say, preferred) exception as is succinct (when pronounced səˈsɪŋkt).
No, not Pat-the-Formerly-Perfect too! And her being a monarch no less. These crimes against humanity must stop. Please don't tell me you have another pun in the oven.
Um...the "variable heat retention" solution to the castaway/four pills riddle you so readily accepted overlooks the fact that while, in theory, the blue pill (assuming it is a dark blue) will absorb more light and therefore be warmer, it will also dissipate heat or cool faster. So it is less a matter of color than timing.
I am not convinced the sunlight solution would result in any difference that could be detected with confidence. Maybe if the guy had one of those infrared temperature detection devices - which he still wouldn’t be able to read.
Being an occasionally kindly soul, I granted the commenter's "solution" or postulate for the sake of argument. And, in fact, the riddle (with all of its required assumptions) is really a test of cognitive ability or deductive reasoning, with perhaps the solution being of secondary importance --- except to the imagined castaway, of course.
And yet, the answer was not “person, man, woman, camera, TV”. (Nor is that the answer for any other cognitive test, btw, due to the words’ obvious relationships.)
The Royal Consort declares that the entry that should have won is Frank Osen's definition of "Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy" as the "acceptance speech from the winner of the Spackling Paste Eating Challenge."
Kevin Dopart wrote my fave to Yip Yip Yip Yip, Mum, Mum, Mum, Mum. Poor Charles!
JefCon's Jew's Harp gets funnier and funnier the more I think about it!
For the "Glibby Glob" entries, love to Mark Raffman's Olympic answer and JefCon's Biden line. So good.
I liked the Little Dog Fight Club entry. I had tried the Las Vegas Dog Show as what happens there stays there. Not talking about Little Dog Fight Club fits perfectly.
And it's by 249-time Loser Rob Huffman, who'd been AWOL from us since pre-substack 2022. Welcome back, Rob!
"The only thing I like about Trump is that he definitely has a sense of humor." Sorry, Gene, but no matter how many times you assert this, it remains a falsehood. Unless you mean he has a SICK sense of humor, which I would argue is a self-contradiction and not worthy of praise from a genuine humorist such as yourself.
Aren’t we laughing at Trump, and not with him?
Someone who's "still as strict as always about . . . perfect rhyme" should know that "acid" and "flaccid" do not rhyme. "Flaccid" is pronounced "flack-sid."
Same with "succinct." And "accelerate."
Hey, Helena. I have been unable to find any authority giving Flack-sid as the first pronunciation. Merriam offers it as second, after fla-sid.
English language dictionaries do not, in general, give “correct” pronunciations. They will give pronunciations that are most common among educated speakers. If you read the front matter of the dictionary you are using you will find this in the fine print. (The front matter is basically all fine print.) That can be frustrating when you are sure you are pronouncing something correctly and someone else isn’t, but it does reduce the number of fistfights between pedants when they argue over how a vowel is pronounced or whether the absence of ‘r’ sounds in a non-rhotic accent is correct or just lazy.
A professional speechwriter I worked for called me out for saying "flassid" many years ago, and I never forgot it. Times change, I know, and old rules get mushy.
I think people pronounce it "flassid" because it looks like it should rhyme with "placid." And I can't think of anything that rhymes with "flax-sid," except the first 2 syllables of "accident." (Or is it "assident?")
that makes me feel better!
Yikes, I've been saying it wrong all these years, not that I used it much!
Flassid is not "wrong." Flassid is the more common pronunciation. Most dics -- which ARE, correctly, descriptive and not prescriptive, only include flassid.
Was the use of the term ‘dics’ while discussing the word flaccid intentional?
Yes, I have been saying dics to mean dictionaries since college.
You, as always, are correct sir. Originally, the "cc" in Latin was "kk" but the second velar was softened with the development of the Romance languages. According to the English spelling-to-sound principle, "cc" being followed by an "i" or "e" should be pronounced"ks" (e.g. "accelerate"), so flaccid (asˈflæsɪd) is a widely accepted (and dare I say, preferred) exception as is succinct (when pronounced səˈsɪŋkt).
Is Yella Poo interpreted as Yellow Poo as in color of diarrhea or Yell-a-Poo as in discomfort from passing diarrhea?
"They" say there are no bad questions, but this one is decidedly pooer.
No, not Pat-the-Formerly-Perfect too! And her being a monarch no less. These crimes against humanity must stop. Please don't tell me you have another pun in the oven.
Um...the "variable heat retention" solution to the castaway/four pills riddle you so readily accepted overlooks the fact that while, in theory, the blue pill (assuming it is a dark blue) will absorb more light and therefore be warmer, it will also dissipate heat or cool faster. So it is less a matter of color than timing.
I am not convinced the sunlight solution would result in any difference that could be detected with confidence. Maybe if the guy had one of those infrared temperature detection devices - which he still wouldn’t be able to read.
Being an occasionally kindly soul, I granted the commenter's "solution" or postulate for the sake of argument. And, in fact, the riddle (with all of its required assumptions) is really a test of cognitive ability or deductive reasoning, with perhaps the solution being of secondary importance --- except to the imagined castaway, of course.
Sorry, didn’t mean to veer political, but that particular boast of failure always irked me.
And yet, the answer was not “person, man, woman, camera, TV”. (Nor is that the answer for any other cognitive test, btw, due to the words’ obvious relationships.)
Sam, Sam... Surely you can differentiate between cognitive tests for "normal" people and legends in their own mind.